This invention relates to heterocyclic organic explosives and more particularly to nitrated triazoles.
3-nitro-1,2,4-triazol-5-one (NTO) is typically recrystallized in ordinary water. Unfortunately, NTO recrystallizes from the water in jagged rod-like particles that have a tendency to agglomerate. The irregular and jagged crystal shapes causes the mixing of the formulations with NTO to be highly viscous and difficult to process and to pour. As a result, the amount of NTO which can be used in a processable explosive composition is limited and the performance of the explosive is therefore reduced.
S. L. Collignon in U.S. patent application, Ser. No. 07/213,037, filed on July 24, 1988, titled "Preparation of Spheroidal 3-Nitro-1,2,4-Triazol-5-One", discloses a method of manufacturing spheroidal NTO by recrystallizing NTO from alcohols of 1 to 4 carbon atoms or mixtures of these alcohols with water. The spheroidal NTO crystals produced were less than 150 microns in size. It would be desirable to provide a method by which larger spheroidal NTO crystals could be produced. Bimodal mixtures of large and small NTO crystals are ncessary to achieve high performance explosive mixtures. Also, explosives with high concentrations of NTO can be processed and poured into bombs using bimodal spheroidal NTO mixtures.